Tara Quinn - An Unexpected Christmas Baby

She’s searching for the man defrauding her father.

Not for the love of her life.

It’s not such a merry Christmas for Tamara Owens, tapped to discover who’s been stealing from her family business. Suspect number one: tantalizing top trader Flint Collins, who’s suddenly thrust into fatherhood when his orphaned baby sister arrives. Tamara’s sworn off babies forever, but she has the magic touch with infant Diamond. And Flint, too, is soon under her spell...at least until he finds out the truth.

Having written over eighty-five novels, TARA TAYLOR QUINN is a USA TODAY bestselling author with more than seven million copies sold. She is known for deliver-ing intense, emotional fiction. Tara is a past president of Romance Writers of America. She has won a Readers’ Choice Award and is a seven-time finalist for an RWA RITA® Award. She has also appeared on TV across the country, including CBS Sunday Morning. She supports the National Domestic Violence Hotline. If you or some-one you know might be a victim of domestic violence in the United States, please contact 1-800-799-7233.

Also by Tara Taylor Quinn

Her Lost and Found Baby

Her Secret Life

The Fireman’s Son

For Joy’s Sake

A Family for Christmas

Falling for the Brother

For Love or Money

Her Soldier’s Baby

The Cowboy’s Twins

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk

An Unexpected Christmas Baby

Tara Taylor Quinn

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-07837-5

AN UNEXPECTED CHRISTMAS BABY

© 2018 TTQ Books LLC

Published in Great Britain 2018

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.

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www.millsandboon.co.uk

For my mom, Penny Gumser, who is

still showing me the meaning of the word mother.

And who still reads every word I publish. I love you!

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Extract

About the Publisher

Chapter One

“Dearly Beloved, we are gathered here today—”

The ceremony had been a dumb idea.

“—Alana Gold Collins to rest. The Father tells us—”

Hands together at his belt buckle, Flint Collins stared down past the crease in his black pants to the tips of his shiny black shoes. Alana Gold . Such a lofty name. Like a movie star or something.

Alana Gold . Not much about his mother’s life had been golden. Except her hair, he supposed. Back when she’d been young and pretty. Before the hard life, the drugs and prison had had their way with her.

“—all will be changed at the last sounding of the bell...”

The Father might have imparted that message. The Bible surely did, according to the preacher he’d hired to give his mother a funeral. Dearly Beloved , he’d said. That would be Flint. The dearly beloved. All one of him.

He’d never known any other family. Didn’t even know who his father was.

Footsteps sounded behind him and he stiffened. He’d asked her to come—the caseworker he’d only met two days before. To do the...exchange.

Dearly Beloved. In her own way Alana had loved Flint deeply. Just as, he was absolutely certain, she’d loved the “inheritance” she’d left him. One he hadn’t known about. One he hadn’t yet seen. One that had arrived behind him.

“So take comfort...” That was the preacher again. For the life of him, Flint drew a blank on his name as he glanced up and met the older man’s compassionate gaze.

He almost burst out with a humorless chuckle. Comfort? Was the man serious? Flint’s whole life had imploded in the space of a week. Would never, ever, be the same or be what he’d planned it to be. Comfort was a pipe dream at best.

As the footsteps in the grass behind him slowed, as he felt the warmth of a body close to him, Flint stood still. Respectful.

He’d lost his business before it had even opened. He’d lost the woman he’d expected to marry, to grow old beside.

Alana Gold had lost her life.

And in her death had taken part of his.

The preacher spoke about angels of mercy. The woman half a step behind him rocked slightly, not announcing herself in any way other than her quiet presence. Flint fought to contain his grief. And his anger.

His entire life he’d had to work longer, fight harder. At first to avoid getting beaten up. And then to make a place for himself in the various families with whom he’d been temporarily settled. He’d had a paper route at twelve and delivered weekly grocery ads to neighborhoods for pennies, just to keep food on the table during the times he’d been with Alana.

The preacher spoke of heaven.

Flint remembered when he’d been a junior in high school, studying for finals, and had had to spend the night before his test getting his mother out of jail. She’d been prostituting that time. Those were the charges. She’d claimed differently.

But then, Alana’s troubles had always been someone else’s fault.

In the beginning they probably had been. She’d once claimed that she’d gotten on the wrong track because she’d been looking for a way to escape an abusive father. That was the one part of her story Flint fully believed. He’d met the guy once. Had opted, when given the chance in court, to never have to see him again. Sometimes it worked in a guy’s favor to have a caseworker.